Schools

Dedicated Gyms a Potential Starting Point for School Space Needs

Braintree elementary schools are crowded and are forecast to add even more students over the next five years.

Recently, staff at Ross Elementary School discovered that they could use a divider in the gymnasium that dates back perhaps 50 years.

The barrier helps with utilizing the multi-purpose room – it is a gymnasium, cafeteria and auditorium – but is only a creaky, temporary solution in a school lacking space.


Ross and Flaherty Elementary School are the only two schools in Braintree without dedicated gymnasiums. Principal Donna Bonarrigo says there is "zero meeting space" at Ross and teachers gather in the computer lab and psychologist's office. 

New, dedicated gymnasiums and more classroom and meeting space would go a long way toward satisfying current needs and the expected addition of hundreds of elementary school students in Braintree over the next several years, Bonarrigo said.

"I would love to have a new gymnasium," she said. "It requires a lot of juggling."

As school officials work on short- and long-term solutions to Braintree's space crunch, they are focusing their efforts on maintaining the existing neighborhood schools, leaning toward additions and renovations rather than new construction that would require re-districting. 

The long-term plan could include requests to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for assistance funding gymnasium and classroom additions at Ross and Flaherty.

More space in those schools, along with the 12 classrooms expected to open in fall 2014 at Monatiquot School, could help alleviate Braintree's growing pains by allowing certain grades or programs to switch locations, freeing up classroom space at all six elementary schools.

"We don't have space, especially in the elementary schools," Business Manager Peter Kress told members of the School Building Committee last week, describing the situation as "critical."

It has been a known problem for years, Kress said, and over the next few months school officials need to focus on a strategy.

Following the MSBA's guidelines of one significant project per year, per school district, Kress proposed that Braintree pitch the state a plan to add a gymnasium and six classrooms at both Flaherty and Ross. The total cost would be approximately $11 million, with the MSBA potentially paying for 48 percent.

Additions at those schools would be the easiest to build because of space availability, Kress said. "It might be a good place to start."

Committee members, including Bonarrigo, Mayor Joseph Sullivan, School Committee Chair Shannon Hume, Kress, Superintendent Dr. Maureen Murray, Finance Director Ed Spellman and architects Steve Habeeb and Leon Auvil, will re-convene this week to decide what kind of recommendation to send to the School Committee.

But adding space at those two schools, even if it meant re-locating special education classrooms to free space at other schools, would not fully solve the long-term problem, officials said.

Still on the table are proposals to add 24 modular classrooms throughout the district, use Monatiquot as a kindergarten center and pair it with Hollis School administration, renovate and/or put additions on all of the elementary schools, and construct new buildings.

The last option is the least likely to move forward, based the building committee's discussion and what Kress called Braintree families' strong preference for keeping neighborhood K-5 or 1-5 schools intact.

"I don't think anyone wants to re-district," Hume said.

Habeeb, whose firm Habeeb & Associates has developed building proposals for the district, said that the construction of a new elementary school capable of holding 450 students would cost $18 million to $20 million.

Renovating all six elementary schools in a similar way as South Middle School was done a few years ago and East is anticipating, could cost $49 million, according to projections submitted to the committee by Kress.

Sullivan also said that avoiding re-districting has to be part of the plan, and that spending extra money to maintain the neighborhood schools could be worth it.

"A larger, town-wide discussion is required as part of this agenda," Sullivan said. 

He suggested that school officials get together with all of the district's PTOs in a public meeting at the high school or elsewhere to go over a strategy.

The town has until January to file a Statement of Interest with the MSBA for a project that could begin in fiscal year 2015.


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